Bowie rocks! Why isn't it more popular?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I cringe every time I see a thread on Bowie (or even PG).

If you don't want to live here, then don't. Frankly, I don't care. But if you don't live here and haven't lived here in a decade or more, then don't talk as if you *know* Bowie.

I live in Bowie. It's the best option for me. And yes, it's a better option than MOCO or NOVA. For where I work in D.C., the commute is much better than I would find in MOCO, NOVA, Howard, or Anne Arundel County. And I have public transit options for days I don't want to drive. There's MARC, which is convenient to my home and work, and there's Metro bus to Metro.

My neighborhood is solidly middle class. It's not "rough." There is none of the "tension" that the other PP went on and on about. Good, nice, friendly people all around of a variety of different ethnicities, ages, and backgrounds.

Money is not the reason I chose Bowie over MOCO or NOVA. My commute would have been much worse in both those locations. And Metro has its issues. At least where I'm at, I also have the option of MARC.

Now, of course, I can't walk to work. And that would be great, but I don't want to live in a condo in D.C., and I can't afford an entire house within walking distance of my work. I don't even think there are even townhouses available there anyhow. Most of the housing within walking distance of where I work comes in the form of condos. I could afford a condo, but it doesn't work for my needs.

So keep squabbling about "my hood is better than yours" and so on. It really makes most of you sound rather juvenile and certainly superficial.

As for commute, you really can't discuss commute "to D.C." from any area in the region without saying specifically where in D.C. There are parts that are more accessible from MOCO and parts that are more accessible from PG. It really depends where in D.C. you work.

I don't. It's ppl who don't know anything about an area and who are so desperate for validation that they live in the 'right' hood to impress ppl who probably don't even like them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think fewer people are looking to move to Bowie than Montgomery County, Arlington, FFX county, etc because of job centers. There's more job centers west and north-west of the city, so more people are tying to live there. A lot of the people living in Ashburn or Chantilly are only commuting to Fairfax or Herndon. East of the city, there's not as many options.

But if that is the case why are the demographics so skewed? We know the government employs a lot of middle class AA people living in PG but I don't think that accounts for it completely, not even close.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Oh, and to add, I guess that there is an insinuation here that it is hypocritical to live in a poor area but not send your children to public schools, and... that's really bizarre. I am willing to pay money for a better school experience just like the people all over the region, with smaller classes, less testing, language immersion, and aspects of character education and Christian education incorporated into the curriculum. Nonetheless it was a decision I agonized over quite a bit, until I decided it was worth it to try preschool and see if it was a good experience or go back to the public school. DH also very strongly preferred the Catholic school. But our neighbors' children have attended public school and I am very impressed at how poised and polite they are. I am making this area work for me and it is working very well.

It's not.

It is, however, hypocritical, to sing praises to your community and then spend money to isolate your child from the children of its members.

+1, especially when the song of those praises is full of implicit and explicit judgment of those who spend more money on real estate to live in a community where they do not need to consider alternatives to public schools.

Bullshit. This is the comment I was originally responding to:

Anonymous wrote:Because it's a small middle class section of a community that is surrounded by large pockets of working class/lower class people who don't have the same resources, and this can cause some stress and conflict. The more uniform people's lives are, the nicer the community. If you are living in chaos due to economics, you bring that into your community- and the higher functioning people have to just live with it.

The comment above mentions nothing about schools, only the "stress and conflict" and "chaos" that comes from living in a lower income area. And PG's median income is not even that low!! If your problem with PG County is schools, my point was that you can affordably work around that to suit your preference, and there is no "stress" living in the area. The vast majority of people I see on a day to day basis are middle class or working class and minding their own business. Nor is attending the neighborhood parochial school somehow "avoiding" the community. There are tons of Catholic schools in this county, and they're all serving middle class people in the community.

PG's stigma is not only about its schools, and it's not about crime, and it's not about the actual quality of life in the area. It's about race. But it's fine, because you guys are paying buttloads of money for buying into that bullshit stigma. Enjoy, but just know that I am paying less than you, for a nicer house than yours, and a better lifestyle, all because I don't mind living around black and hispanic people.

I think it's this self-congratulatory and self-righteous tone of your posts that rubs a lot of people the wrong way. It's great that you are not racist, but those qualities aren't particularly likable either.

As for myself, I wouldn't consider Bowie because I prefer to live in a more urban, walkable, and closer-in area. It would be great to have your degree of financial freedom, but I'm not willing to sacrifice walkability and a short commute. But I understand that others have other priorities, and I don't judge them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I think it's this self-congratulatory and self-righteous tone of your posts that rubs a lot of people the wrong way. It's great that you are not racist, but those qualities aren't particularly likable either.

As for myself, I wouldn't consider Bowie because I prefer to live in a more urban, walkable, and closer-in area. It would be great to have your degree of financial freedom, but I'm not willing to sacrifice walkability and a short commute. But I understand that others have other priorities, and I don't judge them.

I am perfectly aware that I sound self-congratulatory, but you know what? I am tired of the people constantly making racist comments about PG on this board and talking trash about my community.

My community is a nice place to live. My community is affordable. And for the pps who think the people living in Bowie are losing some life competition, maybe it's the other way around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Oh, and to add, I guess that there is an insinuation here that it is hypocritical to live in a poor area but not send your children to public schools, and... that's really bizarre. I am willing to pay money for a better school experience just like the people all over the region, with smaller classes, less testing, language immersion, and aspects of character education and Christian education incorporated into the curriculum. Nonetheless it was a decision I agonized over quite a bit, until I decided it was worth it to try preschool and see if it was a good experience or go back to the public school. DH also very strongly preferred the Catholic school. But our neighbors' children have attended public school and I am very impressed at how poised and polite they are. I am making this area work for me and it is working very well.

It's not.

It is, however, hypocritical, to sing praises to your community and then spend money to isolate your child from the children of its members.

We do that all the time in DC. For those who cannot afford private or want to say, I support public schools, we Send our kids to niche charters like YY, Lamb, and CMI. These schools have small class room sizes, active parents, foreign languages in elementary, and the ability to dissuade disreputive/underperforming students to leave. We call them public because they are paid with our tax dollars and not our after tax income. But, we all know that most, if not all,are just low-rent private schools paid with tax dollars. Schools without the headaches of traditional public schools. Win-win for us.

You can't "send" your kids to charters, let alone popular charters. You have to lottery and pray for luck. Don't make things sound accessible when they aren't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People get stabbed at the Towne Center on the reg.

I love how people just make up facts to support their claims.

Based on statistics, Bowie is about average for the metro area:
Here's the link to the Bowie page. You can search for each area separately, but this gives a comparison based on the same statistics site.
http://www.areavibes.com/bowie-md/crime/

Of note, look at the second column which is the number of violent crimes per 100K people in the area. Compare against the other jurisdictions, the state and the nation. Bowie violent crime (133) is less than the average for the state of Virginia (366), the state of Maryland (446) and the national average (366). It is less than MoCo and most of Virginia including Alexandria.

Statistic Reportedincidents Vienna/100k people Virginia/100k people National/100k people Violent crime 8 48 196 366 Statistic Reportedincidents Bowie/100k people Maryland/100k people National/100k people Violent crime 76 133 446 366 Statistic Reportedincidents Alexandria/100k people Virginia/100k people National/100k people Violent crime 276 183 196 366 Statistic Bethesda/100k people Maryland/100k people National/100k people Violent crime 186 (estimate) 446 366 Statistic Rockville/100k people Maryland/100k people National/100k people Violent crime 230 (estimate) 446 366

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People get stabbed at the Towne Center on the reg.

I love how people just make up facts to support their claims.

Based on statistics, Bowie is about average for the metro area:
Here's the link to the Bowie page. You can search for each area separately, but this gives a comparison based on the same statistics site.
http://www.areavibes.com/bowie-md/crime/

Of note, look at the second column which is the number of violent crimes per 100K people in the area. Compare against the other jurisdictions, the state and the nation. Bowie violent crime (133) is less than the average for the state of Virginia (366), the state of Maryland (446) and the national average (366). It is less than MoCo and most of Virginia including Alexandria.

Statistic Reportedincidents Vienna/100k people Virginia/100k people National/100k people Violent crime 8 48 196 366 Statistic Reportedincidents Bowie/100k people Maryland/100k people National/100k people Violent crime 76 133 446 366 Statistic Reportedincidents Alexandria/100k people Virginia/100k people National/100k people Violent crime 276 183 196 366 Statistic Bethesda/100k people Maryland/100k people National/100k people Violent crime 186 (estimate) 446 366 Statistic Rockville/100k people Maryland/100k people National/100k people Violent crime 230 (estimate) 446 366

Maybe many of the reported incidents occurred at the Towne Center.

[Anonymous]

Probably most of the incidents happened there. That is where undesirables (from Landover, Cap Heights, etc) travel to shop. They consider it "fancy" shopping.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Realizing they could never afford the SFH of their dreams in Fairfax, my best friend just moved with her family to Bowie, and I'm so impressed. I'd been there all of maybe twice in my life but I was so blown away. They got a gorgeous cape on a leafy, tree-lined street for just under $300K. The house is totally renovated, and the lot is massive. Many of the neighbors have already been over to say hi, and one even brought welcome cookies (that doesn't happen in Fairfax). They say the drive is 30-40 minutes door-to-door into Downtown DC with minimal traffic on 50, and apparently there's a pretty decent public elementary school. There's plenty of shopping and dining nearby.

I'm super critical and didn't ever think I'd like anything in PG County, but Bowie is a hidden gem, and it's so affordable. Why isn't it more popular? I feel like nobody really considers Bowie when they're house hunting, and I'm not sure why.

It's Bowie. At best it is 45 minutes away from downtown and on most normal week days, it is closer to 90 minutes. The schools are medicore and there isn't much in the way of anything beyond basic suburban staples in terms of food and shopping.

[Anonymous]

90 minutes? stop trolling.

[Anonymous]

Bowie probably has less crime than many of the gentrified areas of DC

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Realizing they could never afford the SFH of their dreams in Fairfax, my best friend just moved with her family to Bowie, and I'm so impressed. I'd been there all of maybe twice in my life but I was so blown away. They got a gorgeous cape on a leafy, tree-lined street for just under $300K. The house is totally renovated, and the lot is massive. Many of the neighbors have already been over to say hi, and one even brought welcome cookies (that doesn't happen in Fairfax). They say the drive is 30-40 minutes door-to-door into Downtown DC with minimal traffic on 50, and apparently there's a pretty decent public elementary school. There's plenty of shopping and dining nearby.

I'm super critical and didn't ever think I'd like anything in PG County, but Bowie is a hidden gem, and it's so affordable. Why isn't it more popular? I feel like nobody really considers Bowie when they're house hunting, and I'm not sure why.

It's Bowie. At best it is 45 minutes away from downtown and on most normal week days, it is closer to 90 minutes. The schools are medicore and there isn't much in the way of anything beyond basic suburban staples in terms of food and shopping.

What shopping are you looking for that's not available in Bowie but is available in Fairfax? Bowie is a good 15 minutes from Annapolis mall which has a ton of shopping options. Annapolis is also a very fun place to eat out. There are also lots of unique places to eat in PG- WaPo had a big feature the other day about ethnic dining in Beltsville. I live nearby and feel no loss over my shopping and dining options.

[Anonymous]

My community is a nice place to live. My community is affordable. And for the pps who think the people living in Bowie are losing some life competition, maybe it's the other way around.

Seriously? I get that people are putting down Bowie but do you really need to be ranting on some anonymous message board about who is "losing" a "life competition?" Just stop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I think it's this self-congratulatory and self-righteous tone of your posts that rubs a lot of people the wrong way. It's great that you are not racist, but those qualities aren't particularly likable either.

As for myself, I wouldn't consider Bowie because I prefer to live in a more urban, walkable, and closer-in area. It would be great to have your degree of financial freedom, but I'm not willing to sacrifice walkability and a short commute. But I understand that others have other priorities, and I don't judge them.

I am perfectly aware that I sound self-congratulatory, but you know what? I am tired of the people constantly making racist comments about PG on this board and talking trash about my community.

My community is a nice place to live. My community is affordable. And for the pps who think the people living in Bowie are losing some life competition, maybe it's the other way around.

Well said! I don't live in Bowie, but I hate it when people trash talk a community that they don't live in.

[Anonymous]

The main reasons I wouldn't consider it are the commute and the schools, plus, as I just saw when I checked it out, the housing stock. Looks like virtually nothing that's on the market was built before the 1960s. No charming older houses, and I'm personally not a fan of the few new builds there either. If I were to buy in PG County, I'd look in Hyattsville or somewhere else with nice old housing stock and a better commute.